Robotic Fish
Robotic carp have been released into the sea in Gijon harbour, Northern Spain in order to detect pollution.
Each fish measures 1.5 m and is fitted with GPS, sonar and water monitoring equipment. The 'Robo-fish' mimic the movments of real fish in the water. They use robotic fins to propel them through water.

Developed in 2009 by the University of Essex, the robotic fish seek out pollutants leaking from vessels using onboard chemical sensors. They have been designed to sample the water and transmit their location and data wirelessly back to base, where the port authorities could investigate further. At the end of a mission the fish should automatically return to base and plug themselves into a charging station, ready for another days hunting. However, these functions have not been realised yet in the EU SHOAL project ended in 2012, and the further research funding is needed to make these become reality.

Water sampling is usually an expensive time-consuming process performed by divers, who have to bring the samples back to shore and then send them away to labs to be tested. These robotic fish will have potential to allow testing to be conducted in real time and incidents of pollution detected and acted upon more rapidly.
Smart paint that detects cracks in massive structures
Structures such as bridges and skyscrapers make up a large proportion of the World’s infrastructure. Typically constructed from concrete and steel, they need to be monitored to ensure they remain safe and fit for purpose as they age.
This process usually involves engineers laboriously abseiling down from great heights and using surveying equipment to check every joint and panel for signs of movement and or deterioration.

Engineers at Strathclyde University are developing a smart paint that can detect microscopic faults and movement in structures, which, they hope will improve the speed, safety and efficiency of maintenance.

Carbon nano-tubes which can carry an electrical charge are mixed with paint and applied to structures. An electrical current is passed through the paint and the voltage recorded. If the structure moves some of the connections between the nano-tubes will break. The change in voltage alerts engineers to the fact that the structure requires closer inspection.

Currently under development in their laboratory, the team hope that the technology will also allow them to identify exactly where in a structure movement has occurred, as well as how much.
Wireless system to power vehicles on the road
Electric vehicles promise to play an ever growing part in our transport infrastructure; however, with a maximum range of 100 miles and eight hour charge times, the limited capacity of existing batteries is undermining widespread public adoption.
One potential solution involves swapping spent batteries for fully charged ones in purpose built garages. This would likely involve the leasing batteries and all automotive manufacturers having to specify the same size and voltage battery on their electric vehicles.

A more appealing option is to recharge vehicles wirelessly, using the same induction technology that charges an electric toothbrush.

Currently under development by Qualcomm, induction pads the size of an iPad can be fitted to the underside of electric vehicles and also sunk into the middle of the road (like Cats Eye reflectors). As an electric vehicle passes over an induction pad a small charge would travel into a corresponding pad underside of the car, charging the battery on the move.

A static charging trial with Addison Lee taxis is due to begin in East London early in 2012.

The electric motorsport team, Drayson Racing, part owned by racing driver and former Minister for Science and Innovation Lord Drayson, also plan to use induction charging to power their 200 mph Lola-Drayson Le Mans Prototype. The 850 hp electric motors will give the car 20 minutes of flat out racing when it competes in the American Le Mans series in 2012.
Fashioneering
Engineering drives fashion as designers seek out new textiles, colouring and manufacturing techniques with which to express their creative ideas. This passion to push the boundaries has produced innovations whose applications go beyond the catwalk.
Spray-on clothes for example, developed by Manel Torres, are made up of short fibres mixed with solvents and polymers, which when sprayed directly onto the skin dry quickly and form a complete machine washable garment. This also has medical applications as it’s 100% sterile and could be sprayed directly over a wound to keep out infections.

The Hug-Shirt, developed by CuteCircuit, explores ways to combine clothing and communication.

It has panels sewn into the shirt which heat up and gently constrict to give the wearer ‘a hug’ when he or she is sent a text message or email.

Although this application is largely for fun, there are many other applications for ‘smart clothing’ – from sportswear that monitors the your health to protective clothing which helps soldiers or emergency services survive and communicate in extreme, chaotic environments.
Graphene - the worlds thinnest, strongest material
Graphine is a graphite-based material made up of layers of weekly bonded carbon. First theorised in 1947, practical applications for this ‘miracle material’ are now being explored.
Just one carbon atom thick, Graphene has amazing properties. At the nano scale (ie. molecular level, with measurements of one billionth of a meter) it is the strongest material ever measured. It is also the most conductive material known to science.

The material’s conductive qualities are already facilitating the development of super high- speed transistors that could drastically reduce the size of computers whilst considerably boosting their processing power.

Graphene-oxide, a derivative of Graphene, can be engineered in to a membrane that is impervious to gases and most liquids, but water can still easily pass (evaporate) through it. This material could be utilised for distilling applications in the medical and pharmaceutical fields and in the production of bio-fuels.

Future applications for Graphene may include wafer thin smart phones, foldable and stretchable electronics and the creation of new light sources.

Ground breaking experiments with Graphene earned Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from the University of Manchester the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Engineering in Virtual Reality
Modelling and simulation are some of the most important aspects of ‘modern engineering’. Increasingly, complex products, and even the factories which will make them, are designed and tested in a virtual world, one closely related to the games and movie industries.
McLaren Automotive engineers developed their new high-tech supercar, the MP4-12C, in a virtual world, substantially reducing design time and cost. Using a simulator designed in-house and complex mathematical models to simulate different real-world road and racetrack scenarios, new ideas, components and configurations could be accurately evaluated without the need to build a costly physical prototype.

The simulation facility also allowed engineers to build hundreds of virtual cars to see how the designed could be optimised to make assembly, and future maintenance, as easy as possible.

When McLaren built their first physical ‘mule’, it drove precisely as predicted by the simulator. Overall, the virtual design process saved many months of development time and cut costs substantially.

Jaguar Land Rover has the most powerful Virtual Reality design facility in the UK automotive sector. The ‘VR cave’ at its head quarters in Gaydon, England, is powered by a suite of computers and Sony media projectors, allowing engineers to see vehicles in an amazingly detailed, fully immersive 3D environment.

They can explore any aspect of a car in ways which would not be possible in the ‘real world’ – for example, being able to fly through the cabin and into a moving engine. Tiny components can be enlarged to cover an entire wall and key factors such as driver sight lines and cabin ergonomics can all evaluated quickly and accurately.

Disney film studios visited the Jaguar Land Rover in January to see how they were using Virtual Reality.
Growing a plane
The University of Southampton has developed the world's first 3D printed plane.
The plane is an 'Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle' (UAV) and it started life as powdered nylon. In a process called Additive Manufacturing, the nylon particles were fused together by lasers and the plane was, literally, grown in 3D, layer by layer. This allowed the plane to be manufactured in just four separate pieces complete with moving wing flaps. It then simply clipped together and a small electric motor was added. From powder to flight took just 24 hours. This technology could allow tailor-made UAVs to be printed for tasks such as natural disaster reconnaissance, crop spraying and monitoring pollution.

Additive Manufacturing can cut 95% of the waste usually associated with machining components from solid pieces of metal. This new approach allows engineers to optimise components, adding strength just where it’s needed and taking away material where it is not.

Additive manufacturing also means that engineers do not need to adjust their designs to fit manufacturing processes. As a result components made by Additive Manufacturing are often lighter than those made in a traditional way. In industries where reducing fuel use and cutting emissions are a concern (such as aerospace and automotive), the weight of components matters enormously.

EADS Airbus, the world leader in Additive Manufacturing research, estimates that it could save c. 1000kg per aircraft using this technology. If this sort of saving was applied across the world’s air fleet, it could save millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
Fighting disease with microbubbles
Dr Eleanor Stride leads a team of engineers at Oxford University using microscopic bubbles to deliver tiny doses of cancer-beating drugs to precise locations in a patient's body.
The team uses ultrasound to create magnetised bubbles, filled with drugs, just two millionths of a metre across (any larger than this and there is a risk that the bubbles could give patients ‘the bends’, a painful and sometimes fatal condition familiar to divers surfacing too quickly from a deep dive).

The team use nano-technology to give the bubbles a protein or fat-based coating which stops them bursting prematurely once injected into the bloodstream. Ultrasound is used to track the location of the bubbles in the patient’s body and once in place, the bubbles are held in position using magnets. Ultrasound is again used, this time to burst the bubbles, releasing the drug exactly where it is needed and in exactly the correct dose.

The benefits of this technology are that it cuts waste and minimises the side effects caused in chemotherapy when drugs are distributed throughout the body. Dr Stride’s team are now working with clinicians in hospital to test and refine the process.